Almost Lover
by Shaps
Summary: Let's face it. There's only one thing worse than being in love with a best friend that you can not, and will not date. And that is... OCC,AU,All human.
1. Introduction

**So, a new story. Those of you who have me on alert will wonder why I'm posting this after an almost-month-long gap between updates for My Returning Relative - but there's a reason! Edward just couldn't stop himself from taking control of the keys for a while. And I'm working on a MRR chapter at the moment anyway :D so all is well in typing-land. Here the story begins, so I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

One week. It had only been one week that we had been apart, and we had talked online every night. I closed my eyes and scooted slightly closer to her, so that my face was pressed against the crook of her neck. Her hair was spread out on the pillow under us, and I was totally surrounded by her. The slightly strawberry smell of her hair. The sound of her breathing. The smoothness of her skin under my lips. I felt her hand running through my hair.

"It's too short now," she said, sighing quietly.

"It was way too long before," I murmured into her. I had gone all last semester without getting it cut, and had spent the last month trying to keep it out of my eyes. I admit that I liked it long enough that she could tangle her fingers up in it, but I hated it when it got in my face. I'd finally gotten it cut over the break. Now her fingers slid right through it, even if she tried to twist them around.

She scooted down so that her face was level with mine, and I opened my eyes to meet her beautiful brown ones. I was never sure which part of her I liked best. Her eyes called to me, nobody saw them like I did, but I felt like her hair was actually the most beautiful part of her. And her neck was my favorite part to touch. It felt so intimate for some reason.

"I missed you, Bella" I said, laying one arm across her.

"I missed you too," she said, smiling at my admission. I closed my eyes again, hoping to drift off to sleep for a bit. I never slept well anymore unless I was around her, and I was exhausted from the week apart. Not that I wasn't exhausted most of the time.

I heard a buzzing from the desk that was at the foot of her bed. I growled a bit as she sat up, reaching for her cell phone. I propped myself up so that I could read the text message over her shoulder.

_I'm in Tyler's room, _it read.

I watched her type out and send her response. _Why didn't you call me? Jerk. I'm in my room._

I sighed again after she folded the phone closed. She didn't say anything back to me. Just laid her head onto my chest, right over my heart. I put my arms around her as I lay back down on her bed. After a moment, she sat back up. I followed suit, and we each turned opposite ways on the bed, me toward the mini-fridge by the bay window in her room; her towards the door that feeds from her double into the hallway and the rest of our dorm, as the doorknob to her room turned.

"Hey Jake," Bella said, walking into her boyfriend's arms.

"Hey babe," he responded. He noticed me getting food out of the fridge. "Oh, hey Ed."

"Hey Jake," I said, picking out a cheese stick and tearing open the plastic. "How was your spring break?"

"It was pretty good. I just went back home and saw some old friends. How was yours?"

_Let's see. I went home, because I just started speaking to my family again after about six months of refusing their calls. I spent most of it getting lectured about how I was screwing up my life. I finally stopped speaking to my depressed ex girlfriend of two years, who had been the total focus of my life for about five years. I didn't have any old friends to hang out with. And my plane was delayed both ways, resulting in me spending a fun night in an airport. Twice._ "It was ok. Boring."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. There's only so much home I can take anymore," he said, keeping his arm around Bella's waist. She smiled up at him. They made a cute couple in their contrast. He was tall, brawny, and dark, while she was shorter, slim, and as pale as one would expect from someone who had just finished a winter in Chicago. Even though she had just got back from visiting her mother in Jacksonville.

I liked Jacob, he was a nice guy, and that was what she needed. A nice calm normal relationship. But I felt like it was really awkward when all three of us hung out, so...

"I'm gonna go check out who's in the lounge," I said, casually taking a bite out of my cheese stick. "See ya around."

They parted from where they had been standing in front of the door to let me pass, and I threw a smile back at them as I left. I was still smiling as I made my way through the concrete hallway of our dorm to the lounge, a huge common room that had a shared TV, couches and tables galore, and a kitchen are for everyone who lived on our floor. Bella really seemed happy with Jacob. I was glad that she had found someone she could be happy with, especially after her last boyfriend. I looked around the room. People were chatting with each other over what they had done during break, or playing games or working on chemistry together. I was the only one with nobody. I sighed. I needed more friends than just Bella and her roommate Alice, who wasn't back yet. I mean, I am happy that Bella found someone, but now I don't have anyone to hang out with.

Plus, I'm completely in love with her.

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**Let me know what you're thinkin', my fabulous readers. Your thoughts are what writers write for :D**


	2. Girlfriend

**Wow, you guys gave the greatest of responses! Thank you so much! Edward prefers to reply like this, so, here they are:**

**Kaylak2190: Huh. Snuggle buddies. I never actually thought to call it that. It sounds a little superficial. Like it's purely physical or something.**

**143twilighter: Her feelings will come up a lot more in the chapters to come, if you are a little patient.**

**MudbloodFlo: You know what? I prefer it to not knowing the object of said unrequited love.**

**PaCho de Nacho: At the beginning, I'm twenty one and in my third year of undergraduate study at the University of Chicago. Bella is in the year behind me, but is actually two years younger than me because she skipped a grade some time in the past. Jacob is in my year. A lot of it will flash back to when we first meet, the previous year.**

**musicormisery4105: I don't really have that much pity for me. And hurray for you. I would consider it nothing but a plus that one was that loving. I know that sounds sort of dickish and condescending, but shouldn't we all try for what you have? They tell me love conquers all. So hurray for love, and those who fall into it easily.**

**And she's lactose intolerant. She developed it over winter break. Why does her mom keep getting her cheese sticks?**

**Lastly, I bet Chanelle will beta for you. She seems chill like that. Plus, if you keep reviewing, you have a source on the inside.**

**4vr17Vi: Wait, I have not told you anything about Jacob yet. Well, not much at least. Not everyone is a captain of a football team (especially at the University of Chicago).**

**Princess-Tinkerbelle: I try to follow my principles. One of those is wishing happiness on those I love.**

**Stupid principles.**

* * *

I hadn't meant to fall for Bella. When I met her, I was an utterly slacking second year at the University of Chicago. I had never paid attention to school, getting by on the fact that I am actually just too smart for my own good all through high school. The only thing I paid any attention to was my girlfriend, Tanya. I loved Tanya. God, I still love Tanya. When I think about her, my hands start to twitch toward my web browser so that I can stealthily check up on her, because I still worry about her.

Tanya was my high school sweetheart. If anyone had to pick one word to describe her, it would be hot. She was stunning. She had strawberry blond hair that came halfway down her back, skin that always seemed to have a healthy tan, and legs that seemed to go on for miles. I was, honestly, the envy of every guy in my high school. Because the second word that anyone would pick to describe Tanya was intelligent. We had met on the debate team, and could never figure out why our schedules seemed to keep us apart even though we were both taking advanced classes. We both loved sports, cards, politics, and as I found out when we started dating, sex.

Senior year of high school was probably the most fun year I'd ever had. Classes were easy, I had the run of the school, and a beautiful, witty, sexy girl by my side. Things started to go down hill when we went to school in separate states. Because, as it turns out, the third word that anyone who really knew her would use to describe Tanya was crazy. She was an emotional wreck. I had known all about it before we moved apart, but it was a purely academic knowledge. I had promised a girl who had been abused and abandoned by her family that I would love her, protect her, and always be there for her. Then I had moved a thousand miles away.

One bought of depression, one ongoing battle with alcoholism, tens of thousands of cell phone minutes, and thousands of dollars later, I met Bella. She was dating Mike, who was three years older than her, and had enlisted in the army. I actually became friends with Alice first, before Bella and I ever formally met. Alice and I stayed up all one night, arguing about people, emotions, and love; and I kept bringing up Tanya when talking about romance.

"Do you plan to marry her?" Alice had asked me, in the course of the conversation.

"Yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with her." Never mind that I had never even dated another person. I loved Tanya, and was completely sure about her.

Alice laughed at me. All five feet negative one inches of her, laughed at me. She was one of the few people with less dating experience than I had. And all she had said in response was, "You should really meet my friend Bella. She says the same thing about Mike."

The next day, when other people had started to wake up from the night that Alice and I had just sort of ignored, Alice dragged me off to some room I had never bothered to meet the occupants of. She banged on the door, and left me wondering if people thought she was huge, or maybe the police, when she wanted to get into their rooms. Inside the room, I heard someone yell some thing. It sounded like "EEP!" but it's tough to tell when it's just a weird surprised noise. Then I heard a thunk, and the sound of someone scrambling around inside the room for a moment. Finally the giant fire proof, bullet proof, bomb proof door that came standard on every door way in my dorm was pulled open. Behind the door, stood a pale skinned girl, with wavy brown hair, and brown eyes that somehow looked exactly like how I always felt these days. And a bruise blossoming on the shin that was left bare by the gray capris she was wearing.

I have to laugh at myself, looking back. I mean, I don't believe in love at first sight, but there was no other way to describe it. That one look Bella and I shared at the door to her room let me see that she understood me, that she was going through the same crap I was, that she needed me, just like I needed her.

Of course, we were both in love with other people.

After a moment, Alice decided she wanted to be acknowledged. She cleared her throat, getting Bella to finally pay attention to her. "What do you want at eight thirty in the morning, on Saturday, Alice?"

"I decided my best friends should meet," Alice responded cheerfully. "Bella, this is Edward. Ed, this is Isabella."

"Sorry," I said to the girl we had plainly just woken up. "I didn't realize where she was taking me when she started dragging me."

"It's...." Bella started to answer, but was cut off by a yawn. "It's fine. Come on in, you two."

I jumped slightly, as her hand brushed my arm as I walked passed.

"Sorry," Bella apologized. She starred down at the tiled floor, not meeting my eyes, as blush started creeping up her cheeks.

"It's ok," I said, walking the rest of the way into the room. "You just startled me."

Alice had already thrown herself onto Bella's bed. I assume it was Bella's, at least, because the other one was bright pink, and immaculately made.

"Yeah," Alice interjected into the awkward silence. "Bella's kind of touchy feely."

"I am not!" Bella shot back, finally looking up now to defend herself. Alice and I both looked at her, letting the situation that had brought on the silence in the first place do the arguing. She went to sit on her bed too, picking up a green pillow and hugging it to her chest as she leaned against the wall.

"Only a little," she admitted in a small voice. She was hiding most of her face in the pillow, but the part that was still visible was seeing how I was reacting. And for some reason, I didn't mind. Not like I usually flipped out when people touched me, but how often do we really ouch each other in the course of a normal day? Physically, most of us are fairly solitary.

"It's ok," I said. Honestly, it was better than ok. I had spent so much time with my arm around Tanya, holding her hand, or playing footsy, or in contact in some way, that I really missed it.

"You can touch me whenever you want," I added jokingly, in a mock seductive tone. Well, the tone was joking, but I meant it. And Bella knew I meant it.

Alice rolled her eyes appropriately at my comments. Some how, even though I had only had one meaningful relationship in my life, the one I was in, I tended to flirt all the time. I never really meant it. It was just sort of my default setting.

"Did you actually have some plan for how this was going to go, Ali?" I asked her. "Or were you just going to have us sit here awkwardly until the dining hall opens and I go to lunch?"

"I'm sure you two can think of something..." Alice said suggestively. I glared at her, before pulling out a deck of cards that I had in my pocket. Yes, I always had a deck of cards in my pocket. It's a way to stay entertained, and always makes for an easy ice breaker with anyone. So sue me.

"Want to play something?" I asked, holding out the deck to Bella.

"What do you know?" she asked. She opened the cards and started shuffling. I smiled at her question. I usually asked that in this situation.

"Anything you know and can teach," I answered. "Poker, rummy, spades, Egyptian rat screw, hearts, thirte-"

"That one," said Bella, interrupting my list of card games. I was pretty sure I had listed a few more after whichever one she was picking. Especially since I was half way through saying one game when she picked.

"Which one?"

"Egyptian rat screw," she said, starting to deal the cards out. Only two piles, because Alice refuses to play this with me any more. If I had a best, most useless skill, it was an Egyptian rat screw. No one counted cards better than me. No one slapped quicker than me. And when I did lose on merit, no one got luckier than me to win anyhow.

"Doubles and sandwiches?" I ask. She nods. We threw the cards out, back and forth, and Bella muttered something. She did it again a few moments later.

"What?" I finally asked, stopping the game, when she said it a third time.

"Ten," she said. "You threw a seven onto my three."

It was another funny way that we seemed exactly the same. I never even really thought about how when I saw digits to a number, I started playing with them in my head. But apparently she did the same thing.

I was about to toss out another card to restart the game, when my phone vibrated. It did this a lot. The surprise was more that it hadn't started buzzing at me during my conversation with Alice.

"I've gotta take this," I said, throwing down my cards.

"Of course," said Alice, looking up from some terrible teenage vampire romance novel. Bella just smiled and nodded wearily as I stood up to leave.

"We're going to gossip about you the whole time you're gone!" Alice shouted as the door closed behind me. The door finally closed with a thunk, and I whipped out my phone.

"Good morning, Love."

"I miss you," Tanya responded. It was a pretty standard greeting from her when we talked.

"I miss you too," I responded easily. Everything seemed easy, when we were just talking like this. "How was your night?"

She hesitated. "It was... good."

I knew the tone. I'd been dealing with it for most of a year now. "What happened?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "I just hung out with some friends."

"Oh," I said, becoming certain that, of course, I didn't get to have easy conversations anymore.

"Who was there?" I asked brightly. It was depressing how easily I could disguise attempts to dig out information as interest in her life.

She hesitated again before answering. She can't really have though she was fooling me. I can practically read strangers minds, and I knew her better than I knew myself. "Katie was there, and Marcus, and Tom."

I sighed, into the phone. Of course. Katie was a fairly normal college girl. Pledging to some sort of sorority, I think, and on the volleyball team with Tanya. And Marcus, despite being a huge prick (read; _normal college guy_) wasn't so bad. Tom was. For one thing, he had the hots for the girl I loved. For another, he was sort of a campus drug connection at her school.

She recognized my guilt tripping sigh. "Please don't be upset. I hate it when you're mad at me. I can't stand it when you're mad. I-"

"What really happened?" I asked, running my hand through my hair. It was a nervous habit I had developed which conveniently disguised the moment when I became so frustrated I would start trying to tear my own hair out.

"Nothing. We just... just had a few drinks." I started to respond, but she hurriedly cut me off. "I didn't even get dunk, Eddy. Please don't be mad. I thought you would be proud of me, that I stopped, that I didn't..."

She broke off, sobbing. "Shh...shhh... it's ok, Tanya. I love you. I am proud of you. You're beautiful, strong, smart, creative-

"No I'm not." she retorted angrily, even though she was still crying. "I'm not. I'm an idiot and stupid and ugly and you _should _be ashamed of me."

"I'm not. I love you. Everyone knows I'm yours and you're mine. I love you more than anything."

"Then why aren't you here, Ed?" she demanded sadly. "I need you."

"I don't know," I answered. "All I know is that I love you."

My good morning phone call ended up taking up most of an hour. At the end of it, a much wearier Edward Masen trekked back towards the room that I had left Alice and Bella in. I wondered if the card game had been cancelled, or if they were even there. I came to what was hopefully the same door as I had left. I didn't actually know if it was her door, I realized. I hadn't paid much attention when I had come down here with Alice, and I never paid attention to anything when I was talking to Tanya.

The door swung open before I could even knock. Bella was standing there, looking worried, and holding a black cell phone in her hand. She darted past me, not even acknowledging my existence.

I decided that I had the right room, and walked in. Alice was still there, fortunately. Otherwise, I would have been sort of creeped out. I mean, some weird guy just sitting in her room waiting for her to get back? I hardly know the girl.

"See why I wanted you to meet?" Alice asked once the door was closed. "She just ran off to talk to _her_ Tanya."

"Alice?" I said wearily.

"Yes?" she said sweetly, smiling as widely as possible, to the point where it stopped being pleasant and started being creepy and mean looking.

"Don't be such a bitch."

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**Beautifully written, no? Edward can be a blunt young'un sometimes, so don't take his review replies to heart. However, he loves an argument, so go nuts :)**


	3. Our Place

**Ok, show of hands: who here is reading My Returning Relative? I know I should see some hands up. I've compared the reviews between the two.**

**Anyhow, I thought Chanelle asked a very interesting question. One that I have actually seen used in some neuropsychiatric studies. It's fascinating what shows up on an MRI machine when people are presented with moral dilemmas like this.**

**Anyhow, on to the point: most of you were absolute punks. I mean, I suppose it showed something about your characters that you all were just unable to conceive of truly desperate situations, but don't you think it is foolish? So many of the answers were, 'I would quiet the baby in some other way'.**

**Let me explain.**

**In the scenario, you are a Jew in Poland in the 1940's. You are hiding in a basement with your family and friends. The Nazi's are coming through, looking for you. You have no tools (well, the scenario that Chanelle was using actually did have you holding a knife you were about to use to clean a chicken with). The baby is going to cry. As soon as it finishes inhaling, the air is going to be expelled as loudly as possible, it will cry and make noise if it is allowed to continue breathing. Any noise will kill you. If _you _cough or whimper, they will find you and everyone that is with you, all the people that are crammed inside that tiny little hidden room so tightly that you can hardly move.**

**If you run, you will reveal where the hidden door is.**

**There is only one way to silence the child, and that is to make sure it does not exhale. No skill with children, no pacifier, no trick, no maternal instinct. None of those is going to keep that kid quiet.**

**Sometimes life presents us with tough choices. The most common response was to pretend that they could somehow escape the choice altogether. Life isn't like that. Furthermore, I would say that if you never have to make a tough choice, where people might get hurt, where your principles and morals are questioned; then you aren't living. Life is learning to love and trust and trying to heal people around you. When you do _that_; when you end up fighting against what someone you love wants because what you know is _right_, then you are making a difference in the world.**

**If you think that you can just volunteer, that you can just try to help people by bringing them things and showing them a good example, good for you. But when they take everything you can stand to give, and still are broken and hurt and jobless, what then? Do you say that you've done enough? Or do you go ahead and hurt yourself to try to fix someone who might be beyond help?**

**On to my review responses:**

**Princess-Tinkerbelle: Yeah, they tell me that too. It doesn't make it any more fun. Oh well.**

**musicormisery4105: Sorry, the beta and cheese stick stuff was actually meant to be directed at 4vr17Vi. My bad. And Tanya is (well, was. She isn't in my life anymore. The first chapter was a couple weeks in my past now. Chapter 2, and a lot of this story will be flashback getting back up to that point.) a clingy person. I like being needed though, and it was a lot of horrible things in her past that made her that way. How can I begrudge her that clinginess when I know what causes it?**

**4vr17Vi: It isn't healthy. But I'm actually a pretty unhealthy person. And I don't know how to teach you to count cards. I am so used to doing it that it isn't even a conscious process any more. But just count them. You just remember what has been played.**

**Avaleigh1: I have figured out a fun thing about classes for me. If I enjoy them, then I will get good grades. If I don't, then I will do terrible. This is why I just switched majors. But as long as I actually feel like going to class, I do great.**

**limella: How kind of you to judge Tanya. You know nothing about her. Nothing. And if you have gone through what she has gone through, then I pity you, both for having such a painful life, and for having no compassion. Sorry if I'm a bit pissy and defensive about this, but I love her. If there was some way that I could manage to take all her pain on myself, I would. Though I worry that it would kill me.**

**mozartandi: You know, you're right. Chanelle probably will change it to T soon. She's in charge of that sort of stuff.**

**Secretlycullen1212: I'm ok, I suppose. Better than I have been in the recent past and worse than I have been in the more distant past. If the qualification for "manly man" is a refusal to kill himself, then I'll make it fine. I don't plan to mope about Bella and my relationship. Ok, that's a lie. This whole story is me moping in a very elaborate fashion. And who said she didn't love me?**

**LilStrawberriBananaMasochist: Doesn't clueless imply that we don't know our feelings? By the way, I appreciated the honesty in the way you refused to answer the question in MRR.**

* * *

"_Alice?" I said wearily._

"_Yes?" she said sweetly, smiling as widely as possible, to the point where it stopped being pleasant and started being creepy and mean looking._

"_Don't be such a bitch."_

"Oh, come on Edward," the pixie insisted. "I didn't mean it like that."

"How did you mean it?" I sighed.

"I just think that you all can be…" she paused, grasping at the air, trying to snatch the right word out of it. "…some sort of support group for each other or something. Who else do you know who is stupid enough to be in a long distance relationship?"

I sat down on the floor so my back was to Alice. "You're right," I admitted as I hung my head in my hands. "That doesn't mean you aren't being kind of a bitch."

"I just worry about you two," Alice said. "I mean, I don't have many friends. Not real friends. It's really new to me. You know?"

I sighed again. One sign that you need to make major changes in your life is that you spend at least one hour a day sighing. I hadn't tracked my time, but I was sure it was at least that much. But I knew I should have been kinder to Alice. I looked up, leaning my head onto the mattress to see the short girl on the bed above me. She had short black hair, fashioned into spikes that went every direction. Her pale skin and contrasting hair screamed Goth; while the white shirt, pink flowery skirt, and light blue socks that were covered in ducks insisted that was not the case. When she'd gotten to school here, she hadn't really ever opened up to anyone. Somehow, we had immediately hit it off. Probably because we were both so arrogant we thought ourselves infallible. We joked that we could see the future and read people's minds. But she wasn't the best at socializing and had never really tried – not until she'd spotted a kindred spirit in me. Now she was the younger sister I never had. She really _did_ mean well, she just wasn't used to caring about people like this.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

We sat in silence for a minute, but Alice eventually broke it. "So what do you think of her?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "I think that I just met her and we hardly spoke to each other."

"Soooo?" she pressed.

"So I try not to judge people on insufficient information."

"That is such crap. I saw that look in the doorway."

Stupid observant little... well, I suppose it was part of why we were friends, being good at reading people like that. "What?" I retorted. "She's cute. I can't find people physically attractive?"

"Exactly," Alice confirmed. "Ed, I'm cute. You are on friendly-slash-flirty-slash-throwing-themselves-at-you-when-they-are-drunk terms with half the girls in the house. Hell, half the girls in the dorm, probably. You never notice anyone. Not physically."

It was easy to explain why I never noticed anyone. I loved Tanya. And Tanya was gorgeous. Beautiful. Divine. Any word you have to describe a female as attractive and sexy, go ahead and pin it onto her. And she was all mine. Why would I want anyone else?

While I was musing, and bringing up memories that would turn the still-virgin Alice's face redder than Mao, she was continuing to follow a rather obvious train of logic I wanted ignored. "That means," Alice continued, "that you were stopped by some emotional connection. That you see something in her that you don't see in any of the rest of us. Something beyond the physical."

It's because she was going through exactly what I was. Except that she seemed so fragile. She shouldn't have been going through that kind of shit. When I looked into her eyes, she seemed broken and tired and like she needed help, just like I did. And as if showing that part of ourselves to anyone would be betraying the person we loved. No one else was allowed into our weakness, except the person who was our life.

"I don't know," I lied to Alice. You know the kind of lie I mean – the kind where we all have to pretend like it's the truth, or the whole 'reality' thing falls apart. At least our little part of it. "Why are _you_ friends with her?"

Alice smiled at my question. And not the evil yeah-I-know-I'm-fucking-with-you smile. The normal one that left me wondering why no one had asked her out. "She's different."

"Different how?" I demanded.

She shook her head. "You'll find out what I mean."

I started to argue, but she put her finger to her lips, and I realized that I could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Maybe it wasn't Bella, but as strong as the doors were against brute force, they never entirely stopped conversation from drifting out into the hallway. I didn't want people to hear us talking about her. For some reason (crazy, I know) Alice and I never really liked people to hear us talking. Especially if it was about others.

The footsteps stopped in front of the door and Bella came back in. If it had been me talking to Tanya, I would have been shocked to get off the phone so quickly. But Bella didn't look any better than I would have for the conversation being so short.

"He couldn't talk long," she murmured, stopping just after stepping through the doorframe. I nodded. It was tough, sometimes, talking to Tanya for as long as I did. But I also had as long as I wanted. If we had to steal moments, I would have killed to be where I was now.

"Do you want to keep playing?" I asked, gesturing to the dealt-out cards.

"Not here," Bella said. I looked around the room. There were photos on her bulletin board of her and people she must have known from high school. A recurring theme throughout them was a baby-faced blond haired guy. Two pictures featured him in army fatigues, one with Bella standing with him, smiling, and one with him just saluting the camera. Bella's outfit suddenly took on a whole new meaning, as I realized that she was wearing an oversized (and probably men's sized) army shirt.

"Do you want to go to the eleventh floor?" I asked. The eleventh floor featured a study space and computer lab that any university student could sign into and use. In a private university that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend, it sat mostly empty. All of us had laptops. "Alice and I go up there sometimes-"

"Can we hang out in your room?"

And now was the time to be embarrassed while I looked around her room. There were books on the shelf above her bed, a mini fridge in front of her window, clothes hanging neatly in her closet. The desk had some papers on it, and the bed was unmade. Other than that, the place was completely orderly. Not only was my room a mess, it was a mess for a reason. It reflected me, and I never let anyone in it. No one the whole school year, except for one week that Tanya had visited.

"I, uh... couldn't we hang out somewhere else?" I asked, looking for support somewhere. Alice was smirking at the whole exchange. "What about Alice's room? I'm sure it isn't as embarrassing as mine is. Mine's really sort of a wreck."

Alice had a room to herself. Apparently she was a little anal as a roommate. There was only so many times that Emily was able to take waking up and immediately being grilled as to the weather, what impact that should have on Alice's wardrobe choice, how that would affect the walk to class, and any other logistical worries Alice had for the day. When housing opened up the empty rooms for transfers, she was immediately relocated from the eighth floor where Bella, Alice and I all had rooms, down to a corner room on the seventh floor. I hadn't spent much time in it, but I knew that the bed was made all the time that someone wasn't in it, the books were alphabetized by author, and that it was decently stocked with food. Bella must have known all that stuff too, as she shook her head in response.

"I want to see your room." Her brown eyes looked into my green ones, and I couldn't refuse. It wasn't the intensity of the gaze. It was the exact opposite. The shear weariness of her eyes. She would fight me on it, she looked determined, but it just looked like the fight would take so much out of her. Like she was beyond her limits and this one last struggle would finally break her.

"Ok," I said. We all headed out the door. This would be a treasure trove for Alice's attempts to analyze me. I hadn't even let her into my room before, and now she would get, for once, a completely unbiased view of something I did. I've heard it said that we should judge ourselves on how we live when no one is watching, and they would both be able to see how I lived under that condition. As we walked to my door, I couldn't believe that I was actually letting them in. I pulled out my ever present key chain, and unlocked my previously-constantly-barred door.

Once I knew that other people would be looking at it, my mind was leaping over every feature and what they would say. I had arguably the best room in housing. I was supposed to have had a roommate, a fellow second year, but he hadn't showed. My response had been to break out my second set of sheets and push the beds together, giving me something more akin to a queen size bed than the usual twin bed found in one of our dorm rooms. I had a mini fridge also, and I had my privacy.

I also had a huge mess, and reminders of Tanya everywhere. She had put the poster up on my wall when she had been here, and arranged the postcards on my bulletin board. There were four pictures. One was of my family. Tanya was in that one too. The other three were me and her. At debate, at prom, and the last one with me kissing her nose as I tried to hold the camera at arms length to take a picture of us. There was the vase for the flowers that I had given to her when they had arrived from the airport. There were several old coffee cups around, which had to have been from when she was here, since I don't like coffee. Letters from her were strewn around everywhere. A pile on the desk. A pile on the floor by my bed. Sticking out of old text books and stuffed into shoe boxes.

All in all, it actually was better than I expected. I knew Tanya was the focus of my life, and I knew that it was a mess, but the only mildly gross thing around was the old coffee cups. And the stray condom wrapper that I snatched up off the ground. I think Alice saw it though. Bella actually walked right in and flopped onto the bed without even looking around.

"Well, here is my secret lair," I offered. "What do you all think?"

"You made it sound way worse than it really was," Alice's voice floated to me. Her eyes were screaming that this was gold mine of information the likes of which she had never envisioned, but the voice was kind enough. I glared back at her for a moment.

"I like it," piped up Bella from behind me. "We should hang out here all the time. The bed's practically more floor space than any of the rest of us have anyway."

"Well, you guys are always welcome. I don't know if I really want to turn it into some hangout for most of the house though."

And just like that, _my_ room became _our_ room.

* * *

**So, let me in on your thoughts. Remember - if you want to fire up, address the review to Edward as he's the one who'll be answering you :)**


	4. Books

**musicormisery4105: I'm aware of the connection - this whole story is in the past tense for me. The first chapter was about four weeks ago, with the rest flashing back to fall semester of the previous school year. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it catches up to life and I stop knowing what happens next.  
As to the messiness, my room is so much worse this year. My roommate is even messier than me, so the room is terrible. I am vaguely grossed out by it. Condom wrappers aren't gross, by the way. Condoms are. Random foil? Not so much. At least, in my opinion**

**Fall Down Again Bella: For some reason, I like high pressure situations. I think they're fun. Nothing makes life more fun than knowing that it really counts this time. Ok, maybe 'fun' is the wrong word. But I hate how much of my life really doesn't matter. The point is that I would welcome the pressure.  
And what makes you so certain how the story ends? ;)**

**EdWaRdCuLleNBItesPillows2432: Those are my favorite pair of socks that she has. Probably why I picked them, since I don't actually remember what socks she had on. Or if she had socks on at all. I mean, it was well over a year ago.  
Thanks for liking the way I write. Maybe the Edward's of the world need to be more arrogant. Because as wonderful and perfect and untouchable I may find her, I'm better than most of these losers, and I love her more. More full-of-myself makes for less mopey.**

**LilStrawberriBananaMasochist: It's a confusing relationship. Simple is just no fun. Now would usually be the part of the conversation that I launch into an explanation of 'complex' and 'simple' being foolish labels that lack meaning, but I doubt we have the time. Or that you want to hear it :P**

**Avaleigh1: I just switched from Economics to Sociology. There is, unfortunately, no creative writing major here. Only a minor. And I used to think I was good at all sorts of things.**

**limella: Sorry if I sort of freaked out. It's sort of a touchy subject with me. And I have been thinking about ways to include Jasper in the story. I mean, I _want_ to make up a Jasper character, someone for Alice, but this is just my life. She hasn't met anyone yet. But it's an ongoing story, since I'm still living it. Maybe she will meet him. She gripes about her lack of romance all the time. We're getting sort of fed up with it. Except that it is really funny half the time.**

**

* * *

**

We all sat there, hanging out on my bed, surrounded by the mess that was my life, while Bella taught Alice and I to play set. After I had continually beaten her at other card games she decided we should play the game she was best at, so that her ego could be slightly bolstered. Surprisingly, I hadn't been interrupted by any calls while we were playing, and we had been here for a couple of hours. We chatted about everything, and were encountering startling revelations about our favourite books.

"Really?" Alice practically squealed. "You've never read the Ender Saga?"

"No," Bella insisted. "I really more read the classics. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, anything by Shakespeare."

"The stuff that they made us read in high school," I said with a smirk.

"They _made _you read it because its good literature and you needed to expand your horizons."

"You're the one who needs to expand her horizons. We've been listing sci-fi classics for like ten minutes, and you haven't read a single one. Your childhood must have been a boring place, of bleak and limited imagination." Alice suddenly got a pained look on her face, but it immediately passed as Bella made her retort.

"My childhood was fine. And you read sci-fi books because that is what you can relate to, not because you want to expand your horizons." Now that the look on Alice's face was back to normal, we were all grinning at the banter.

My phone finally started ringing, right when I should have been making some sort of really witty comeback. "Yeah, I relate to aliens and world destroying spaceships of doom," I tossed back as I ducked out of the room. I flipped open the phone as I made my exit.

"Hey Love," I greeted Tanya.

"Hi," she said. "I was just getting ready to take a shower and was thinking of you. And thinking of sending you a picture or two of me."

I smiled, thinking of previous pictures and conversations we had had. "You know, one day I'm going to be in polite company when you send me that sort of picture. Then what'll I do?"

"Why do you think I call you before hand, Eddy?" she whispered huskily into the phone. "I wish you could be here with me this weekend. My roommate is out of town."

"My roommate is always out of town. That was part of the charm when you visited." We hadn't left the room the first day that she got in, except to eat, shower, and use the bathroom. There had even been a fire drill, and we'd just ignored the alarms. "I can't really talk though. A bunch of us are about to go out for lunch."

I felt guilty for saying it. Technically, it wasn't a lie. Alice, Bella and I _were_ about to go to lunch. I hadn't brought it up with them yet, but my metabolism is Olympic-swimmer quality, without the need for exercise. I'd been hungry all day. It wasn't because of that. It was because of why.

"Who are you going with?" she asked cheerfully. It was a fake cheerful. Tanya was always terrified that I would leave her. She had a lot of issues, and never could see that I loved her and always would. That they would have to kill me before I would let her go. She had met Alice, and instantly despised her. Not because she thought Alice was mean or evil or a bad person at all. Just because it hurt her to see another girl, or really, another _person_, spending any time with me, and knowing that it was time that she wouldn't get. I realized that she was insanely jealous and possessive, but then, so was I. Plus, I thought it was cute, since I knew I would never leave Tanya. She would get worried and I would get to comfort her.

"I don't know. Some random first years." This was always a lie. I never went places with people I didn't know. Plus, I knew most of the first years in my house by now. I'd given the lie to keep her from getting upset before, but now I felt like I was giving it to protect the wrong people.

"Is Alice going?" she finally came out and asked, nervously.

"I'm not sure. Do you want me to check?" A quick step to alleviate her fears. To remind her that I didn't care about anyone else and only _would_ care about them if she asked me to. It was practically a ritual that I went through every time I was going out with people.

"No, don't worry," she said. I could hear the sadness in her voice. She didn't really believe that part – that I didn't know if Alice was going to be there. "Just don't fall in love with anyone else, okay Edward?"

"I'm yours Tanya. Forever."

"And I'm yours too, right?" she asked. "There's no one else you love?"

I love all my friends, I answered in my head. The truthful answer. The answer I had given her the first time I had told her I loved her, when we were just friends back in sophomore year of high school. "No one else, Tanya. No one before you, no one but you, and no one after you. Only ever you, Love."

"I love you, Edward."

"I love you, too." I whispered into the phone as I paced the hallway. "I'll call you later, okay Love?"

"Yes. I miss you," she said, pleading. "Call me, please."

"I will," I promised. "I love you. Bye."

"Bye."

"I love you," I whispered one last time as I closed the phone. My pacing had taken me right back to my own room.

"Lunch?" I asked cheerfully as I came back into the room. I sometimes wondered if people really believe that I was happy after these conversations, when I pretended to be. If I could convince myself, surely it would be good enough to convince people who I only met a few weeks ago?

Alice looked at Bella, checking her opinion before answering. "Sure." She hopped up from the bed, before turning around and holding her hands out for Bella to take as she got up. It's sort of strange watching a really tiny person help someone up. She had too lean all her weight back to actually move Bella any. We headed out my door, and into the balcony part of the lounge. I swung down the stairs to the tiles below, landing quietly despite having gone down in two steps. I prided myself in my quietness. Our parade finally made it to the seventh floor elevator lobby. The eighth floor had a lobby also, but for some reason, only one of the elevators went to even numbered floors (excluding the second floor. The elevators opened into the dining hall kitchen on the first floor, and maintenance keys were required to get to that floor. Exiting required going to the second floor and walking down some stairs). Fortunately, we got the faster elevator, which was also the one that would have come to the eighth floor. I slapped the '2' button as we walked in and lined ourselves along the back wall.

"You know," I said, breaking the completely comfortable silence that had sat in the elevator, "I got trapped in this elevator once. My first year."

I didn't know why I was telling either of them this. Alice and I were friends because we both didn't open up to people. When either of us wanted to say something to the other, a look would do. Feeling it, thinking it, and we each could just figure it out from there. We never traded stories about our pasts. Not unless we needed them as source material in an argument.

"How'd that go?" asked Alice.

"Well, I was stuck here for like forty five minutes. Probably because it was three in the morning."

"Wait, why were you up at three in the morning?" Bella asked.

"Well, I was doing my laundry and -"

Alice cut me off. "And Edward never sleeps anyhow. Ask anyone. No one ever sees Ed go to bed."

"Have you seen him sleep?" Bella asked Alice.

"I've seen him say goodnight and then go to his room, but I've also heard him on the phone afterwards."

"Haven't you heard? I'm a vampire," I said, jumping back into the conversation. "Ask the RH, Sonny. He'll tell you."

Bella rolled her eyes, and the elevator arrived on the second floor. The lobby extended out along the second floor much farther than the part of the structure that held our rooms. Dorm mythology holds that there were originally supposed to be two towers, connected by the dining hall and the second floor lobby. The second one never got built though. Or so they say.

"No, I'll take your word for it," Bella said. "I'm sure you have no reason to lie about being a supernatural creature."

"What are you talking about? Of course I would lie about being a supernatural creature. Do you think I can just tell people I can read minds?"

"And I can see the future," chimed in Alice.

"Wow," said Bella sarcastically. "And me with no magical powers at all."

"You got gypped," Alice observed.

We turned down the stairs at the end of the lobby, past the front desk, where a not-too-vigilante attendant always pretended to monitor who went into the part of the building people lived in. As we got to the line for the dining hall, I looked at Bella. "You know, I think you are magic."

"I don't believe in magic," said Bella. I shook my head. She definitely needed to read more sci-fi and fantasy books.

"You don't need to believe in it. I know it's there. Magic is like love. It doesn't need the person on the receiving end to know it is there."

"Crazy romantic," muttered Alice.

We got up to the register, where a bored woman swiped our student IDs before nodding that we could go through. We grabbed green trays, plates, and silverware, before perusing the food that was out for Saturday brunch. 'Brunch' meant that they were putting out the crappiest food from all the meals. Except for waffles and custom omelets. Well, really just the waffles. I got into line for one, and managed to get through in a pretty reasonable amount of time. I grabbed some pizza, cereal, and some cherry soda before I went to the house table in the back. My house was the seventh and eighth floor of the dorm that I lived in. Every house had its own set of tables in the dining hall that it usually ate in (there were three dining halls on campus).

Alice and Bella arrived at the empty table shortly thereafter. Our house is not known for being early risers. And noon is early for a Saturday. As soon as we sat down, Bella's phone rang. She answered it hurriedly, and went off to a table in the corner, far away from prying ears.

"So, how 'bout them White Sox?" I asked Alice. She rolled her eyes, and we spent the rest of our first meal together, Bella, Alice, and I, communicating silently while waiting for Bella to get off the phone.

* * *

**Thoughts? :)**


	5. Pause

**CamellaBones2747: Wow. The way you have chosen to look at us... is very mystical. I like it. It's got a certain beauty to it. I wonder about your conclusions though. Maybe it's just because I am living the story right now, so I don't know how it ends. But your faith in us is beautiful. I used to have faith like that...  
Whatever, not the point. Would you believe that I have thought of Tanya as an addiction before? But I'm the drug, and she is the addict. That makes it seem like she needs me and I don't need her, but what is a drug without a user? It has no point to existence.**

**LilStrawberriBananaMasochist: You think that conversation made you sad? I used to have those conversations for hours every night. Hours that I needed to work or sleep or try to connect with my family. After you have a marathon version of one of those conversations, you are utterly exhausted, yet you can't be alone with your thoughts, where you would be if you tried to go to sleep. In fact, being alone with my thoughts these days is a very painful thing. Not like it used to be just a few months ago, but it still hurts.**

**Avaleigh1: Thank you for your vote of confidence. So far, my perceptiveness has availed me little. Maybe it has allowed me to learn from my mistakes, but it also made me so arrogant that I made the mistakes in the first place. And I actually probably will spend more time writing on education. Maybe I'll do some stuff on teens. They were a fun lot, as I recall ;)**

**limella: It is sort of a stretch to call us obsessive compulsive. I liked comparing it to addiction more. But hey, I've only taken one psych class in my life. As for the future of relationships, do you really want to know what happens in the story? I feel like that break up is kind of an important thing.**

**LiveAndDontRegretIt: I honestly have no idea what they were talking about. I wanted privacy for my own phone conversations, and I would never have tried to intrude on hers. If she went stayed where I could hear, plainly she doesn't care as much, but if she wants privacy too, I respect that.**

**Princess-Tinkerbelle: Really? Brunch sucks. Breakfast and lunch as distinct meals all the way. And I could have had a wonderful life with Tanya. Yeah she was clingy. She has been abandoned by everyone who she ever thought loved her, including me. She trusted me. I spent years repairing her heart, teaching her that she could trust me, that there was nothing wrong or ugly about her, nothing that could drive me away from her. Then I left her. Completely and totally. I mean, if a person has issues after being abused as a child and moving around among a bunch of homes, sometimes with, sometimes without, her parents, that is completely reasonable. I told her it was ok though. That I loved her and wouldn't leave her. God, I'm going to stop now, before I start laughing maniacally, then go smash the shit out of whatever a can get my hands on. Bella and Alice are asleep, and I bet none of the other girls here know that they could stop me from kicking whichever guy I find's ass just by getting in the way and depending on my refusal to hurt women. Sorry. I'm calm. I'm just a little angry these days. I just... I loved her so much. What is the thing that is most important to you? The principle or belief that tells you who you are? Because I always believed that I would do anything for those I love, and now... now I've been shown to be a liar. To not live up to my own standards.**

**skittles-rule: I was doing laundry. Are you implying that there is something else you usually do at that hour in the laundry room?**

**Tanya goes to school in New York, and I am a student at University of Chicago. So... about 714 miles as the crow flies. Not quite a nice musical thousand miles.  
And you are going to get so annoyed at me. I mean, I'm not in love with Tanya any more, but I spent an awful lot of time in love with her. I love her still. I'm just not in love with her.**

**whats my name again77: Why do you feel worse for me? I have to deal with her emotions. She has to deal with all those too, plus her life, the things that caused the emotions in the first place.**

**grace-grace13: Oh, possessiveness. Hated so much, for such a cute little flaw.**

* * *

We all sort of dispersed after lunch, agreeing to meet back in my room after dinner. For some reason we all entered into this friendship as if it was some secret club that we couldn't flaunt in other people's faces… and that had some sort of agnostic knowledge that no one else did. The rest of the day seemed to fly by though, as if everything in life had been rendered unimportant. I chatted with people in the lounge, played video games and cards. I did some readings for my class on Islamic civilizations, and got a meatball sub for dinner. But the parts that stuck out in my mind were the ones where I passed Bella. Just a nod or a wave, or not even anything at all. But I remembered those moments more clearly than the things that ate up my actual time.

The meeting, after dinner, was for Alice to try to convince us to get into her latest obsession. Someone (I never did find out who) had recently convinced her to watch some TV show, and she was now spreading its gospel with that fervour that only a convert can ever truly have.

"What was the name of the show?" I asked again, as she searched for it on fanpop. I had my own laptop out, while she was working on Bella's.

"Veronica Mars," said Alice. "And you are _not _allowed to read the Wikipedia entree on it."

Bella and I shared a look – we were silently chuckling at Alice in our own minds. I closed the window that had just finished loading the Google search I'd done on the show. Thinking very quickly, I remembered hearing about it in the past. It was some sort of detective show. More targeted toward high school females, if I remember the people I heard talking about it correctly. Angsty-high-school girls. The kind who have Xanga blogs or Live Journals. You know, the fun kind of people.

We all settled down to watch, and it turned out to be a good show. At least I thought so. But I wasn't going to give Alice easy points for having good taste. I'd make her drag it out of me.

"Sooo..." asked Alice, as the credits to the pilot episode aired. "What did you guys think?"

"It was ok," I said.

"I thought it was good," Bella readily admitted. Apparently she didn't consider it fun to try to torment people before admitting they were right.

"What does 'ok' mean?" Alice demanded, making air quotes.

"It means that it was pretty good. I very rarely give out a better rating than 'ok'," I said, as if my rating was some great concession. What I had just told her was true, even if I was _kind_ of lying this time.

"So I should just not let your opinions get to me?" she said. Her annoyance was really the only reason I did this sort of thing. If she didn't get upset, I would never bother to be a nuisance like this.

"Well, you could say that," I said.

"Or you could just say it was really good," I admitted with a smirk. The small yellow stuffed duck that Tanya had gotten for me at her school came whipping at my head. Or near my head. Alice might be smart, driven and organized, but she was an awful shot. It splattered against the wall behind me before falling to the bed.

"What did you like about it?" Alice asked.

"Wait, what?" I said. If this was the retaliation for my poking of her pride... then I would probably keep doing it, while being slightly annoyed in exchange.

"What did you like? The writing? The characters? The story?" Holy crap. Apparently we were in for the Spanish inquisition about this show.

"Alice, I'm no critic, can't I just _like_ something?"

"Nope," she cheerfully informed me. I started typing on my computer, no longer paying her any attention. I wasn't going to critically analyze the show. Not on my first time watching it. It totally ruins the fun of a story. "How about favorite character? Besides Veronica."

"Veronica's not my favorite," I said, not looking up from the computer screen.

"And I'm not sure who my favorite is yet," said Bella. "We've only seen one episode. We don't know anything about most of them."

"Well which one is your favorite character _so far_?" Alice demanded with a huff.

"Logan, of course," I said. "I can recognize a kindred spirit."

"The obligatory psychotic jackass?" asked Bella, quoting the description he'd been given in the show.

"He's not a psycho. He's crazy. Depressed a bit, and vents it in the wrong ways. You could tell by the stand-off at the end. He's got no sense of self preservation."

"And this is a good thing how?" Bella questioned me.

"It isn't a good thing," I said, looking up to meet her eyes. "It is an interesting thing, and it is something I can understand. But it isn't a good thing."

Bella broke away after a moment. "He reminds me of... someone I knew."

"Who?" Alice and I asked in unison. We both even asked it with the same concern-laden tone that you would want to put on any request for information that you were disguising as a therapeutic, supportive inquiry. And we both assumed it was her boyfriend, or at the very least a past boyfriend.

Bella shook her head. "Just some people from my past."

Assuming it wasn't her boyfriend, her past sounded like an interesting place. And who knows, it might be her boyfriend _and_ her past. Fun in every direction of her timeline. I looked at Alice, wondering if she wanted to go ahead and take the lead on a more thorough interrogation, but she looked concerned rather than her usual curious. I was starting to think that Alice already had more information on Bella than I did. Which meant that I could get it second hand (but only if it seemed to be as traumatic as Alice acted any time it was brought up in conversation). Either that or she just noticed the same fragility in Bella that I did.

"So are we going to watch the next episode?" I asked, moving the mood back towards something lighter.

"I thought you'd never ask," said Alice, practically bouncing, as she clicked over to a different tab in Firefox to reveal that she had already loaded the next episode. I shook my head, thinking that I should have known that she wouldn't take no for an answer here. Bella leaned against me as we settled in to watch the movie, while Alice sat what seemed like a mile away on the other side of bed. Part of me felt like I should shy away from physical contact, but that was just stupid. It wasn't like I would betray Tanya. If a person needed to lean on me for support, I was actually much more reliable than someone else. I wouldn't try to take advantage of her, or even want to convince her to dump her absent boyfriend and date me instead. I had the girl of my dreams, even if she was a thousand miles away in New Jersey.

Over the course of a few episodes, (it's a good show!) I ended up with my arms around Bella, while she laid her head against my chest. I couldn't see her eyes, and I thought she might have fallen asleep. I could smell her hair though. It smelled very nice. Kind of fruity. She murmured something. Did she talk in her sleep? She turned to look at me questioningly. She was definitely awake then.

"What?" I said. I realized she must have said something to me that I hadn't heard.

"You're vibrating," she said. I realized that she was right, that I had been paying so much attention to the show and to her that I hadn't noticed my phone ringing.

"Oh!" I said. Instantly, my arms were off of her. She sat up, and I quickly scooted out from under her and bounded off the bed.

"Do you want us to pause it for you?" asked Alice as I made it out the door. I didn't respond as it swung closed behind me.

"Hey Tanya," I greeted cheerfully as I hit talk.

"Edward?" asked a timid, though definitely masculine voice. Immediately I was on edge. Call me jealous and distrusting, but what was he doing with the love of my life's phone?

"Who's this?" I practically hissed into the phone. There wasn't anyone at that school I liked. The closest thing to a good influence on Tanya were the ones that didn't _always_ encourage her to get drunk.

"This is Stephen," he said. "Listen, we need your help-"

"Where's Tanya?" I demanded, cutting him off.

"She's here, that's what I wanted to-"

"Is she ok?" I said, not caring what _he_ might have wanted.

"Yeah. Well, I mean, she's not hurt..."

"Give her the phone. I don't want to talk to you," I informed him.

I heard voices in the background, one of which I was certain was Tanya's. She sounded angry, even if I couldn't quite make out the words in the conversation. Stephen finally came back on the phone. "She says she wants you to talk to me, that she doesn't want to talk to you right now."

"Why the hell would I talk to you?" I asked, hanging up the phone. I was glad that it gave a satisfying click as I snapped it shut. My old phone hadn't folded closed. Who would want a phone that they can't hang up by slamming closed or down on a cradle of some kind? While I was admiring this fact, it went off again.

"Hello," I answered.

"Don't hang up," Stephen pleaded.

"Wrong number," I responded, hanging up again. Immediately it rang again.

"Is it Tanya yet?" I asked.

"She's not ok!" he shouted into the phone.

"You have my attention," I said, leaving unspoken the part where I would kill him if something had happened when he was supposed to make sure she was ok or this was in any way his fault. I'm sure he heard it anyhow.

"She won't let us leave," he said sheepishly.

"That doesn't sound normal, but it also sounds like _your _problem as opposed to _my _problem." I didn't care about him. Only about her.

"She tore my room apart, has piled everything green up into some sort of nest in the middle of my floor, and dragged Kevin back into the room when he tried to get out." Ok, that was a little odd, even for her.

I sighed. "Can you get the phone near her ear?"

"Yes, probably."

"Do that," I ordered. I couldn't trust anyone in the rest of the world to look after my Love. No one else ever helped her, or even saw when she needed. That was why they ended up in situations like this. Because when someone needed their help, the world just turned a blind eye to it. They didn't deserve someone as amazing and beautiful as her, I thought angrily. They didn't deserve to even know she existed.

"Tanya?" I asked when I heard noise on the phone. "Love?"

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**Reviews always appreciated. You guys are super :)**


	6. Click

**aj79k40: Alice has the whole thing on dvds too. Though personally, I don't know if I feel like anything exists after the alterna-prom episode.**

**Avaleigh1: Would you believe it was just because we were stupid? At the time, we thought we could deal with being apart better than we turned out to be able to. And maybe our pride wouldn't let us admit that we needed the other one enough to make a choice of what school to go to based on that.**

**mamacat20: You all realize that this is happening still right? There is no ending yet? I can go get myself arrested, or jump of a building, or take back Tanya, just to spite all of you! I'm crazy! I'll do it! The point is, your observations, what you say and feel and think, they can have an effect on how I act. They can change what happens. The ending isn't written yet.**

**LilBriarRoseMasochist: I never said what happened to Tanya. Not in this story. You won't get the tale of everything that happens to Tanya on here. It's another story entirely that I am also writing. I'm about eight thousand words into it, and maybe one day it shall be a brilliant best seller for all to read. But it isn't for this story.**

**18forks: Hi Bella! (Everyone should wave to her or something.) I am just going to answer most of this review by smirking, because you know I know the things that have already happened in real life. So don't give me crap about what I have or haven't said. As for tedium, sure, for us maybe. We lived it once already, after all. For readers, probably only a little.**

**On a fun note, Bella posted responses to people's review in her review, so go check out what she thought of you. (I'll give you a hint, she thinks higher of Jake than you do.)**

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I trudged back into the room. Because that's really all it was, wasn't it? It was a room. There was some stuff in it, but nothing that I would miss if it fell out the window. I suppose I'd be annoyed that I had to get a new coat, and a different laptop. But really, what good was any of it? Did it even really count as yours if you didn't care about it?

Alice and Bella were still there, though they had quit watching the show. I wonder how much attention they paid. Had they even bothered watch after I left? What time is it? That had been a rather long phone call, even if judged only by the pacing. Around the halls a few times, down all eight flights of stairs, out along the low wall, down the block. It's not a good sign when I end up anywhere away from the dorm due to pacing during a phone call. Good thing my phone seemed to have had a good charge on it. I would have hated to have had to run back to my charger. Or to ask someone randomly if I can borrow their phone as I kept having to do freshman year. It let me just wander all the way out onto the quads this time.

Whatever they had been talking about cut off when I walked in, of course. I doubt that it was anything sensitive, that they wouldn't want me to hear. I'm pretty sure it was just me.

"Everything ok, Ed?" said Alice, asking to be lied to. Courtesy says she has to ask though, right?

"Yeah, fine," I said, sitting down on my bed. I picked at the sheet, twisting it between my fingers.

"It's pretty late. Do you want us to leave?" It wasn't late for me. I bet it wasn't even that far past three o clock yet. Certainly hadn't reached four. Could it?

"No, stay." Did I want them to stay? I didn't want them to leave. I didn't really want anything. Or maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to scream and throw my phone against the wall and throw my bed through the window and just cry. Or just sleep, without thinking or feeling. I plugged my phone into the charger that was by my bed.

"I'm going to go change," announced Alice. "We can make it a slumber party!"

"Yeah," I agreed, mustering up some enthusiasm. It would be new. Different certainly. I had never shared a bed with anyone Tanya. Well, my family, I suppose, when I was a little kid, but I barely even remember that. I just never felt that comfortable with people that close to me when I slept. I felt more comfortable with Bella and Alice though. I wonder if it was because they were just that much smaller than me. They didn't seem like a physical threat. Could that really make that much of a difference?

"I'm going to go change too," said Bella, sliding off the bed. She gave me a hug, pressing her head into my shoulder. "Be back soon."

"See ya," I said hollowly as the door closed behind her. Or I think I did. Maybe I just sat there, unmoving for a minute.

I went and took a quick shower. I always shower at night. For some reason I just hate going to bed feeling the least bit dirty. I'm sort of neurotic about it. I usually brush off my bed before I sleep, to make sure that any dust or dirt that got on it is gone. Plus, the shower gave me a chance to get myself more under control. I had a chance to rebuild the facade that I kept up all the time while I scrubbed the shampoo into my hair. I didn't even know why I did it any more, since I didn't care what the people around here thought of me. But I made sure that I seemed a little more normal, or at least more normal for me. A dash of happiness. Some devil may care attitude. Eight parts snide sarcasm. And, of course, my heart on my sleeve. Can't forget that part. I brushed my teeth too. Can't forget dental care either.

"Hey," I said, half smiling as I got back to the room. Half smiles and smirks were very common for me. I noticed that Bella and I both had blue on, though hers was shorts with some sort of fern like pattern on it, while I had plaid blue pyjama shorts. Blue made too much of an appearance in my wardrobe. Blue jeans. Blue pyjamas. A lot of blue t-shirts, for that matter. My laundry could be a very depressing place.

"Oh good. We were worried you had gotten another phone call." Alice, of course. Only half aware of how jerkish that sort of remark was.

"No, she's asleep now. I'm off duty." Ha, what a crock. I was permanently on call for her.

You know what can be really weird? Figuring out exactly how you are going to be sleeping with your attractive-member-of-the-opposite-sex friends. Do you just ask them how they want you, or some other similarly innuendo laden statement?

"Ready for bed?" I asked from near the door. Conveniently enough, near the light switch.

"Yep," answered Alice, while Bella just nodded. I shut off the light, before awkwardly climbing into my own bed. It seemed a good deal smaller with three people in it than it did when it was just me. Alice had lain down on the side of the bed closest to the door, while Bella had taken the middle. That left me lying down by Bella. We ended up face to face. It felt very intimate, and I thought that it would seem very cold of me to turn around the other way, even if I wasn't in a good mood.

"How are you?" whispered Bella. Not really the question of course. The real question was how my heart was doing, a time zone away from me.

"How do you think I am?" I asked. It wasn't biting or sarcastic. It was just sad. An acknowledgement that she wasn't alright, that I wasn't alright. That honestly, we were beyond fucked. She reached out, slowly brushing her finger tips along my cheek, down my jaw. I shut my eyes. It wasn't like it was too intense, or too intimate, she just seemed to open some thing up in me. I felt like I could be so much more open and honest. Like I was safe. It was ridiculous. She was over half a foot shorter than me, and light enough that I could probably pick her up with one arm. And I didn't need protecting. I always prided myself on that. I was the protector. I was the one who stood between the people I loved and anything that would hurt them. It was part of why I was the way I was. I made sure to never value anything so much that I couldn't give it up for someone who needed it. Tanya needed everything, so I was perfectly willing to talk to her all night, if she was depressed, or to talk her through going back to her own room when she was so drunk she couldn't stand.

And I never took. My life was too good. The biggest obstacle I had growing up was a custody dispute between parents who loved me. I had all the money I could want. I was smart and quick and hell, even handsome, according to a lot of people. So I never leaned on anyone. Never even thought of it. They needed me. It was what I was there for.

But Bella didn't feel like that. Her tracing over my skin felt like a break in an onslaught I didn't even know I had been weathering. Or maybe just another person, standing there by me in it.

"Yeah," Bella breathed. "I know."

I sighed, taking her hand. "I just wish I could protect her. That there was something I could really fight against. Not just … problems in her past."

"I know," Bella repeated. I heard her sniff quietly, and my hand went to her face. She was crying. I was too, I realized, as I heard the gentle tap of tears running from my own face onto the pillow. Not for myself. At least, only partially. But for all of us. Me, her, Tanya, Mike. We would win this, right? Love conquers all. It'll save us from all of this and make it worthwhile. I was sure of it.

I pulled Bella into me. Each of us had an arm awkwardly pinned in between us, and we sort of held hands. I put my arm around her, as we quietly cried with this person that we'd just met less than twenty four hours before.

"She's got it worse," I said about the sleeping Alice. "She doesn't even have any idea what this feels like."

Bella nodded against me. Poor Alice, we thought. Somehow it was just better to feel the huge hole in you than to slowly leak out of it, bleeding to death without even knowing that you were wounded.

"How do you guys do it?" asked Alice, seemingly from out of nowhere. "How are you so comfortable with each other? How do you let yourself fall so completely for someone else?"

They weren't separate questions. Nor were they the same question as many people would think of them. She wasn't asking how we could fall so completely with each other. But being like we were, loving someone as completely as we did Mike and Tanya, it let us be sure of the other. They came with perfect references. Not that either of us knew that the other would love as that much. But that they could do nothing to hurt us, because of what that would do to Mike and Tanya.

It had to suck for Alice. She'd introduced the only two friends she had, the only people she really could relate to, and we had immediately gotten along better with each other than we had with her.

I don't remember if we bothered to answer Alice with words that night. She thanked me later for things I said while she was listening to Bella and I talk. She had pretended to sleep after we had curled around her. But after her question we wanted to make sure that she knew we cared about her, that we loved her too, so I ended up sleeping on the tiny sliver of bed between Alice and the edge. It was a familiar place for me.

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**Don't forget to read Bella's review!! Penname: 18forks.**

**Love to hear what you're thinkin, even if it's nothing to do with anything. Rambling is a favourite past time of mine :)**


	7. Presence

**mamacat20: I'd like to apologize for my review response last week. I'm sure it sounded a little crazy (not that I'm not). I sort of freaked out when you acted so...ummm... negatively towards Tanya. And then Chanelle took out the paragraph where I angrily ranted and maybe cursed a bit. You only got the last bit of the rant.  
****I'm not planning on doing anything to get arrested (who ever plans that sort of thing? It's spur of the moment). But bowing and self disparaging remarks from you lot will only make me more likely to do crazy things.  
****I don't think that I will be nearly as in depth here about Tanya and Me or Mike and Bella as people might want. If you really have any questions about Mike, you should just ask Bella yourself. I didn't know him very well.**

**Avaleigh1: You know a lot about asking to be lied to because people ask you to lie to them, or because you ask to be lied to? Or both?**

**sprinter1: Is that a deliberate pun? Or am I just seeing those everywhere again?**

**Alice who is not my Alice: There is nothing in life that I do not speak about more cruelly than I should. Certainly not anymore. On the other hand, if doctors or loving parents could speak like that in jest, surely I would be allowed an offhand remark or two.  
****I don't take pride in having been there for her. I wasn't there enough. And even if I had been there enough, do we really take pride in doing the bare minimum someone else needs from us?  
****Oh Alice. She's so perceptive sometimes, and so blind others. I do wonder if I should have been more open with her in the past. How it might have affected her to really see how I felt in some situations.**

**LilBriarRoseMasochist: The whole world needs more help than anyone seems to give it. I hope everyone who reads this does more to take responsibility for themselves and everyone else.  
****I'm sorry that I won't be explaining what happened with Tanya on that phone call. But that is sort of the point. The particulars of that incident are irrelevant. I just picked it because I liked how it played with in the story, and how it showed that I am a pissed off little jerk who only cares about Tanya. It was chosen to show my spite, along with her screwed up ness. There are so many stories I have like that. I could just list them for pages, if you'd like.**

**Leahswings: I don't know if people should feel that bad for Alice. I mean, so she isn't deeply in love with anyone, and her best friends get along better with each other than her. She's still smart, pretty, successful, and financially secure. Plus, while both she and Bella know that I would do just about anything for them, only Alice abuses it on foolish things like having me make a late night snack run for her when it's freezing out.**

**cshorte: I need to protect Tanya because I love her and she is being hurt. Perhaps others need more complicated reasoning than that, but that is sort of how it goes for me. Someone I care about is being hurt, then I should help.  
****Tanya just needed to be protected more than most because she was such a perfectly designed victim of all the terrible things that happened to her.**

**And to Bella: I'm not just a uchicago kid. I am _the_ typical uchicago kid. I am what we are thinking of when we call ourselves uncommon, or make up scav. It makes me one of a kind in a way that seems so normal.  
****And come on, who really say that I'm normal? Maybe your cousin, but that was on purpose.**

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A routine. I would have to say that I got into a routine at the end of fall quarter that year. We had more "sleep overs" in my room, until finally Alice didn't come to all of them. Then it was only a sleep over if Alice came. Bella just lived in my room. We talked about a lot of different things. We liked the same toppings on our pizza, and both hated peanut butter. We liked the same books for different reasons, when Alice would come demanding that we read some series that she was sure we would like.

Really, it was good that she was there. I could stay up as late as I wanted still, she never did anything to get me to stop talking to Tanya, but I couldn't sleep through class anymore. I could sleep through every kind of alarm known to man, but not through her asking me to wake up. And when I would get off the phone with Tanya, and all I could think about was how much pain she was in, and what I would do to myself for failing her, Bella was there to snap me out of it. She was the only thing that ever did. I wouldn't even really be self aware half the time. I would just find myself lying there, with my head in Bella's lap, as she petted my hair. Any tears from talking to Tanya were long dry by then.

I was able to help Bella when she was sick, maybe making up a little bit for her waking me up every morning. I went and picked up her antibiotic from the pharmacy, got her food and water, and basically just encouraged her to stay in bed for a while and sleep. Which, given our class schedule, may or may not have been considered helping.

I was there for her too, when she would get off the phone with Mike. Her conversations seemed a lot more peaceful than mine and Tanya's. At least from my perspective. I think Bella was just making sure to be strong for him. To never let him know how worried she was over everything that was happening, what he was doing and the way he was acting. But she would come back to our room, and climb into my arms afterwards. Whatever I had been doing didn't matter then. I would just hold her, not saying anything. I would wonder if this was what she did for me when I had no idea.

She talked about Mike more than I did about Tanya, so I knew that he wasn't doing well. That he might have been a little off the whole time, but that now he just seemed to be getting more and more depressed, and nothing she could do seemed to snap him out of it. Apparently he was kind of like me, both of us loving snippy, sarcastic comments like they are a family member. Maybe a little antisocial, if left to our own devices.

We kept watching _Veronica Mars_ also. It's surprising what you can learn about a person from their reactions to a TV show. I suppose that it is a better show than most. You could tell Logan reminded her of Mike, sometimes. When he was at his best, crazy and self destructive, she would lean into me almost like she had just talked with him, as if she needed that support again. And I learned why Alice seemed to flinch away from any talk of Bella's childhood from the scenes with Aaron Echolls. Seeing her become so still. Not like she was tense or waiting. Just as if there was nothing there, as if emptiness was the way she should be. We finally talked about it as we were going to sleep after watching one episode that featured the Echolls' wonderful father son relationship.

"One of the pluses of a lot of siblings and divorced parents," I whispered, "was knowing that sort of thing could never happen to me. There was always another kid to run for help, and an adult willing to attack at the slightest mistake by their opposite number."

"You make it sound like they had some sort of war over you." That's exactly how it was. There was always a constant balance of power. If one parent wanted to take us to do something fun, the other parent had to come up with a better activity. When my father started attending church again, my mother joined the missions board at her church. No action was uncountered. It was a diplomatic war, but it was a war none the less.

"How many siblings do you have?" she eventually asked my silence.

"Five. Three older and two younger."

"Wow."

"Well, all my parents are divorced and remarried," I said, part of my standard spiel about my family.

"All of them? Wait, never mind." What I had said actually made sense, if you thought about it.

"What about you?"

"My parents got divorced when I was in middle school," she admitted.

"What was that like?" I asked. "My parents were remarried by the time I was in first grade. I don't remember not having two families." I'd been around two, I think, when my mother and father got divorced. My whole life, I had never asked why they split up. It didn't occur to me as a child, and once I was older, how could I ask that when the person they married had raised me just as much as either parent? It seemed like it would be a slap in the face, reminding them that this person they hate used to hold _their _place.

"It was strange. The house was really empty. But..." she trailed off. I knew what she was saying, but it wasn't an accusation I felt I could make.

"But what?" I asked instead, making my tone as soft as I could.

"My father wasn't really... he was kind of … abusive."

Tanya had been abused as a child too. She'd turned out rather differently than Bella. Where Bella was very tactile and wanted people close to her, Tanya was just confrontational and violent. Not to me, but with her family. And somehow, neither of them was the first friend of mine who had been abused. Is it really that common?

"There are three things that I never forgive people for," I whispered back. "Hurting women. Hurting children. And hurting those I love. How is it that so many people who do all three are still alive?"

"Edward," she said, putting her hand on my cheek. "I didn't tell anyone until after it stopped. I think my mom was in denial the whole time."

Somehow, this didn't make it better for me. I clenched my jaw. I realized that I was shaking slightly. "I would have done anything to protect you. I would do anything to protect you."

"I know," she said pulling herself against me. My arms went around her. It was nice to have her there. It was kind of cold in my room, the perfect temperature if you had a comforter and someone to hold. And right then, when she was admitting to me that she had been hurt, demonstrating how easily she could be, I never wanted to let go. It just seemed like I should protect her. Even if I was only a friend, it killed me that Bella had to go through something like that.

"Do you ever see him?" I asked into her hair.

"Only every now and then. He sends me money sometimes. I think he's kind of trying to make up for it." As if you can ever make up for something like that. "Sometimes people ask me about him, and I feel so awkward. Because I can't explain, but I never see him or anything. I don't know him any more."

"You can't do anything about it now, Ed."

I sighed. "I know. That's what I hate about it. I just... I wish that I could protect you. All these people I care about so much, and when they needed me, I just wasn't there."

"You didn't even know me. You probably didn't know any of them, did you?"

She was right. But it didn't matter. I knew how I was when I was younger, and I'd been a coward. Whenever there had been a tough choice about which parent to spend time with, I had just followed my brother Nick's lead. I hadn't even had the balls to decide that, how would I have possibly actually defended anyone?

"Edward, you were just a kid," she insisted, as if she was hearing my internal conversation.

"What does that matter? I knew what was right and wrong as a child. You can't only have your convictions when you are strong. That's no convictions at all. Like being in love. You love all of the person, not just the easy, pretty things about them."

"Love isn't like that. You don't love all of a person," she said after a while. "You love someone because they make you happy, and because you make them happy. And if they ever have something they need, you help them with everything you've got."

I didn't answer. We both drifted off to sleep after that, just like we did after a lot of nights. The routine continued, as she woke me up at eight in the morning, for my terribly early and GPA-killing introduction Mandarin class. Sometimes I would be staying up way too late, either from talking with Tanya, playing spades, or doing homework. Every time I did, I would head back to my room, hoping that Bella would be there, already asleep. I don't know why I liked seeing her asleep in my room. Maybe I liked seeing her so peaceful, where I can take care of her and know I can protect her. Or maybe I just was so desperately lonely for contact with someone who understood me that I was glad anytime I saw her. But it was what I hoped for any time I stumbled, exhausted, back to my room at three or four in the morning. And when I came back from class, or a meal, or anything else that might have taken me out of the dorm, she was the first thing I would look for. Not that I went searching everywhere for her, but I was disappointed whenever she wasn't there.

So I was happy, obviously, when I came back to my room one day after class, and found Bella sitting there. It was easy to tell that there was something wrong though. Bella never was one to hide her emotions if she didn't need to, and right then she didn't. She was curled up, hugging her knees to her chest. She was still in her pyjamas, even though she had a class that should have been happening earlier in the day (and unlike me, was unwilling to go to class in pyjamas). She didn't even move, or give me a chance to ask what was wrong when I came in.

"Tell me I did the right thing, Ed."

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**Intriguing? I certainly hope so. Tell me your predictions :)**


	8. Hugged

**Avaleigh1: Well, obviously it was about Mike, but part of me wanted to change it just because I hadn't even really considered the possibility that you suggested.**

Book2romantic: I have no idea what you are talking about. Look, they're fine.

LiveAndDontRegretIt: So I'm only supposed to be protective of people that I am going to end up dating? Because holy crap, I'm going to end up dating a lot of people. Why aren't all of us more protective of each other?

mamacat20: I don't scare easy, don't worry. It actually can be a bit of a problem sometimes.

Most of the rest of you seem to have had your remarks addressed by the chapter you're about to read. But hello to the new readers, melissa-thelostcullen and Lady Dragona.

And to Bells: Regarding your review, yeah, I totally lied about your reading habits. I'm pigeon holing us into characters from a fictional series. They probably still think of me as being tempted to suck people's blood.

Half of me was going to use this to taunt you over things that are happening in real life right now. But I changed my mind. Instead, I just want you to not feel so guilty when all of this has blown over.

*Edit: You realize that this response to you was months ago, right? Because, dear Bella, I am now totally allowed to taunt you in real life.  
_

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_

_"Tell me I did the right thing, Ed."_

Shocked. No, I couldn't have been shocked. We'd talked about her breaking up with Mike lots of times. It wasn't shocking. It wasn't expected. It just was. I immediately laid down next to her. Bella scooted so that her face was pressed into my shirt. She was still curled up into a ball, but she was so small that I had no problem getting my arms around and holding her.

"I did the right thing, didn't I?" she pleaded. I felt her hands grab the front of my shirt, just to hold on.

Bella had broken up with Mike. Some situations aren't about right and wrong. Is it right that a person should be so miserable, so frightened all the time? Of course not. But it also isn't right that anyone should have to hurt the person that they care about more than anything else in the world.

"We're you happy?"

"No, I haven't been happy... I don't know..." She didn't exactly have to be decisive right now. The big moment when she would have to stand her ground had already happened.

"Then I'm glad you broke up with him. I want you to be happy. He probably does too." It's a funny thing, happiness. Mike probably did want Bella to be happy. But he probably also wanted her to keep dating him. They were mutually exclusive, it seemed, but it was what he wanted. He got a nice front row view of how the things he wanted are impossible. Let's face it, it sucked to be Mike right now.

Her phone started beeping from where it was hidden under my pillow, and I pulled it out to see who it was.

Mike, of course. I wonder how many times he had called before I got back. Or even how long it had been since she had broken up with him.

"Do you want to talk to him?" I asked the ball that was still curled up against my chest.

"Yeah," she said. But it sure didn't sound like it. I let her pull back and take the phone.

"I'll ..." I'll what? Give you privacy. Go hide for a moment? Sit in the lounge? Wait at the door? What the hell do you do when you know that someone you love is about to get hurt, but they feel like they have to? Especially if you have no right to interfere.

"I'll be around," if you need me. Not that there's really anything I could do. She didn't stop me as I left. She didn't say or do anything to make me think she wanted me to leave, but she didn't stop me.

"Ed," called out David, one of my housemates, as soon as I walked into the lounge. "Spades?"

The usual spades table was already set up, with Matt and Lily, two other people who played a lot of spades, seated and shuffling cards. "No thanks. I'm just taking a break before I actually start doing some work."

Lying seemed called for. I wouldn't want people to know about how my relationship was. In fact, I tended to threaten my fellow students if they seemed too interested in Tanya. She was mine, and I didn't want them to even think they had any chance with her.

"You doing work?" he asked. "I never see you work."

"I've got a single. And I usually do my work after everyone is asleep." He shrugged, and went back to spades, where Lily had recruited another player. The funny thing was that he was right. I hardly ever seemed to do any work. I mean, it wasn't that I didn't have it, I just couldn't find the will to do it most of the time. Nothing in me seemed to care about it. I really needed to get my shit together. Instead I watched a hand of spades.

There was really no way of knowing how long I had decided to exile myself from our room, if I was just waiting for that phone call to finish. I would have been surprised if Bella had decided to come out and get me or anything. So after a few minutes I just wandered back to my room, pretending the whole thing had just been some sort of break from doing homework like I had told Dave.

Have you ever been in one of those situations where the emotion in a room is palpable? Where you can feel the relief like a physical thing? Where you can cut the tension with a knife? Sadness like a weight on everyone's back? This was kind of like that. Except even though Bella's emotions were a solid thing in the room, they were so messed up, screwy, and out of control that you couldn't pin one down. Mostly they were bad ones, it seemed. Maybe some relief was in there.

Well, she was done with the phone call.

"Let's play set," Bella immediately announced. Which was fine. Who was I to pry at what must have been an incredibly traumatic conversation? It wasn't like I was a psychologist or something. I was just the random emotional support. I was also the random patsy getting their ass kicked at set, because Bella was not fucking around with that game. I mean, usually I only stand about a third of a chance anyway, but she was focusing everything on those stupid cards, while I went ahead and paid more attention to her than to a game that I probably would have lost even if we had both been our normal selves.

"Is there anything you couldn't forgive Tanya for?"

I suppose Bells could go ahead and talk, now that she was so far ahead in the game that it didn't matter how many I got.

"What do you mean?" It was a stupid response. But I was fishing for exact information about a phone call I'd just missed.

"Could she ever do anything to make you stop loving her?"

That was a different question. Or, maybe not so much. "I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe if she did something that showed she wasn't the person that she is. If she turned into a murderer or something."

Or not. Half of me always wanted to turn into a psychopath. It was such delicious fun, whenever I let myself have little cruel power trips. But the idea was the same. There might exist some action to demonstrate that I was completely wrong about who Tanya was, and about the nature of our relationship. Anything short of me finding out she wasn't really the Tanya I knew and loved, I could forgive.

We lapsed back into silence. It must have been a really bad phone call. I could hear responses that went unspoken, just because Bella was too kind to take her pain out on me or call my relationship into question. She had been so shaken by that conversation.

"What do you want to do for dinner?" I asked as I shuffled the cards. She'd quickly won the first of what was a rather short game anyway.

"I don't care." Dinner wasn't usually an issue at all. We had a dining hall in our dorm. I was usually the one who got hungry first, so I tended to dictate when things shifted more towards food.

"Do you want to go to Bartlett?" Bartlett was a different dining hall that was a couple blocks south of us in the middle of campus. It was considered to have better food than ours, but more importantly, it would not be filled with people who knew us by sight and saw us in the hall every day.

"If you want."

After another couple of games we headed off to eat. Alice hardly ever ate with us anymore, as I had somehow convinced her to give fencing a try, and now she attended every practice and was thinking of buying her own equipment and running for some sort of officer position on the club next year. She always ate after practice with the other fencers. So it was only Bella and I who headed out into the cold to get slightly better food at Bartlett.

Bella and me and my phone. I quickly snatched it out of my pocket, feeling an additional degree of awkwardness answering at that moment.

"Hey, Love." I answered in about the same manner I always did, but it felt like I was speaking ill of the dead, or somehow flaunting my own happy relationship right in front of Bella, when I did it this time.

"Hi Eddy." I breathed a sigh of relief at Tanya's voice. It didn't have anything in it to suggest that she was feeling bad, that she had any problems, or that she was thinking of doing anything that she thought I would disprove of. It was cruel, but at the moment, I could end the call quickly to help another person who needed me more at the moment.

"How was your day so far?"

"Pretty good. The volleyball team has a big trip this weekend."

"I know," I answered, my mind finally bringing up the memory of her telling me that they were traveling to St. Louis or somewhere for a tournament. She had also asked me to watch the online video stream of some of the games. "I can't wait to watch."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should have watched some in high school when you could have actually been there in person."

"You know I couldn't show that much school spirit for such a god awful institution."

"Not even for _me_?"

"You're the reason I didn't drop out." Only sort of true. But it sounded so romantic to say, I just had to do it. "I was about to go eat. Could I call you later?"

"Oh yeah, sure. I should probably go eat too."

"Ok, I love you."

"Love you too." I hung up, turning my attention back to Bella. She was not reacting to the whole thing. Probably trying to give me the privacy that I always demanded for those phone calls. "Sorry."

"Why?"

I didn't answer. It just struck me as a bad idea.

The dining hall in Bartlett is on the second floor, and we made our way up there. She ended up getting a chicken quesadilla, while I got a steak burrito. Mexican food is one thing our usual dining hall sucks at. Taking our seats didn't seem to really change anything though. I am sure she knew there were a thousand questions I had, and I'm sure she could have ranted at me for a couple days about guys, relationships, and every facet thereof. But instead we just ate quietly, talking about random inane things if we spoke at all.

* * *

**Enjoyed? Let me know!!**


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